In order to conduct a business of any size in today's commercial environment, it is necessary to utilize telecommunication equipment on a daily basis. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the telecommunication needs of a business grow generally in direct correspondence with the business activity thereof.
An important aspect in communicating with others, especially by telephone, is that the call be completed promptly and directly to the desired party. However, as the business activity of a person increases, the probability of completing a call to such person decreases. As a result, the calling party is often confronted with a busy signal, in which event either a subsequent call must be made or a message left with an attendant or secretary. Great strides have been made in the telecommunications industry, and especially in connection with call processing, for facilitating and expediting the completion of calls. Disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,028, by Morganstein et al., and assigned to Dytel Corporation, is a technique for expediting incoming calls directly to telephone sets connected to an associated switching system. Another call processing feature for facilitating telephone communications, by way of voice messaging, relates to voice store and forward techniques, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,931,476, by Matthews.
Generally, any options in completing calls to a busy telephone set are left with the calling party. Uncompleted telephone calls of the noted type, as well as cases in which the called party does not answer, result in either a delayed communication, or no communication at all, depending on the urgency of the situation. It can be appreciated that important economic and commercial ramifications may result from uncompleted telephone calls, such as the loss of business, the loss of time, and in many cases the frustration of the calling party which may be detrimental to business relations. This is highly significant, especially if the call could have been completed directly to another party who could provide the necessary assistance or information to the calling party.
From the foregoing, it can be seen that a need exists for a call processing technique which facilitates the completion of telephone calls during busy and no-answer conditions of the called party. There is an associated need for providing telecommunication methods and apparatus for allowing the called party to provide personalized call routing of incoming telephone calls, in the event the destination telephone set is busy or is not answered.